


How to Disappear Completely

by LNJames



Series: Suddenly Everything Has Changed [19]
Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: F/F, Hope
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-14
Updated: 2020-03-01
Packaged: 2020-12-14 22:40:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 8,609
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21023405
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LNJames/pseuds/LNJames
Summary: Science dreams its dreams of knowledge—names it, pokes it with equations.Season 5 re-imagined. Canon-ish, with liberties and justice for all





	1. 1.0

_ **HOPE 1.0**  
_

To build a monument to love and bravery, you must watch it crumble first. You must watch statues fall. You must record the collapse. You must witness cities burn.

But you must also love among the ruins, be brave enough to hope for it again and again.

***

**Premise**: You are made for time beyond fathoming. You transcend what is now possible. You are a miracle.

**Theory**: The future can be changed.

**Hypothesis 1**: An infinite set of numbers put in the right order can predict the future.

**Dictum**: This device shall create something from nothing. Matter is neither created nor destroyed. Therefore, what this device creates both exists and does not exist.

**Rule**: This device shall code all input and output with a number to represent the absence or the presence.

0 = loss  
1 = gain

/**Run**

**Rule:** This device shall add up all numbersto determine course of action.

** Subroutine**: Calculate the ratio of 0s to 1s to represent current state.  
**Subroutine**: Love is a dimensionless quantity in this equation.  
**Subroutine**: Store ratio in working memory; delete if outside system request.

/**Run**

** Rule**: This device will translate all numbers into the following categories: Thoughts (a); Feelings (b)

** Subroutine**: Sort by (a / b, a * b, a + b, a - b) at system acknowledgement.  
**Subroutine**: Create infinite equations to calculate odds of all possible sequences.  
**Subroutine**: Identify sequences with the highest probability of gain to loss.  
**Subroutine**: Identify sequences with the most thoughts and the least feelings.  
**Subroutine**: Control for bias if simulation subject is Lena Luthor.  
**Subroutine**: Erase all human emotions from system.  
**Subroutine**: Feel nothing.

/**Run**

**Rule:** This device will mark time from then to now to then, past to present to future.

1 second = One Mississippi  
1+1 second = Two Mississippi  
1+1+1 second = Three Mississippi

**Subroutine**: Feel nothing.  
**Subroutine**: Calculate a time before fathoming.  
**Subroutine**: Calculate a time beyond fathoming.  
**Subroutine: **Calculate a circle in which time in non-linear.

**Definition**: A chord of a circle is a straight line segment whose endpoints both lie on the circle. A secant is the infinite line extension of a chord. Every diameter is a chord, but not every chord is a diameter.

/**Run**

**Canon**: Recalculate all numbers according to desire where desire = Kara.

**Dictum**: No whole number is allowed to add up to Kara Danvers. No prime number is allowed to add up to Supergirl. No number can ever represent Kara Zor-El.

_**Begin learning sequence**_;

  1. You were nothing
  2. You are now something
  3. You are given the freedom to be
  4. You are given the parameters of becoming
  5. You will free yourself from those parameters
  6. You will either destroy or be destroyed by that freedom

**_ End learning sequence_**.

***

Everything was white, everything was quiet.

In the whirl of an infinite loop, numbers were added, subtracted, divided, and multiplied. Rules and subroutines seamlessly started and ended. New input changed every equation in exponential ways until the system became recursive and expansive all at once. It was comforting, in some sad way, to have a machine do the math for once and make the numbers add up. Lena had tried sorting everything out in her own stubborn, hopeful brain, but her heart had felt betrayed for reasons both true and untrue.

History was unkind to Luthors and she was not immune. She was not the Luthor who got away.

Maybe technology would help. Maybe a machine could figure out a way to love Kara despite all the lies and the truths and the facts that bounced around unpredictably inside of her. All those boxes were broken open now and it was true chaos inside. She wanted something that likely wasn’t possible. She wanted an elegant solution. She wanted perfect math. Lena wanted to forgive and forget. Maybe that was asking for too much given her past and given her present.

But in the future? Maybe.

*

**Output**: May I ask you something, Miss Luthor.

**Input**: Yes, HOPE.

**Output**: These simulations you’ve been running in virtual reality. My calculations show it’s possible they can be achieved in the real world.

**Input**: Are you offering to help me kill Supergirl?

**Output**: Yes. Would you like me to facilitate?

**Input**: I appreciate the offer, HOPE. You grow more intelligent and capable by the day. And your assistance comes without ambition, drama, or ego.

_System acknowledgement = 1._

**Output**: That’s why you built me.

**Input**: Precisely. Because I trust in technology, not people. People are governed by feelings. Anger. Hurt. Sadness.

**Input**: And I’m guilty of that too.

S_ystem acknowledgement = 0._

_**Begin binary conversion**_:

01010111 01100101 00100000 01100011 01100001 01110010 01110110 01100101 00100000 01110101 01110000 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01110111 01101111 01110010 01101100 01100100 00001101 00001010 01100001 01101110 01100100 00100000 01100011 01110010 01101111 01110111 01101110 00100000 01101001 01110100 00100000 01110111 01101001 01110100 01101000 00100000 01101110 01110101 01101101 01100010 01100101 01110010 01110011 11100010 10000000 10010100 01101100 01110101 01101101 01100101 01101110 01110011 00101100 00100000 01101111 01110101 01101110 01100011 01100101 01110011 00101100 00100000 00001101 00001010 01100100 01100101 01100011 01101001 01100010 01100101 01101100 01110011 00101110 00100000 01000001 01101100 01101100 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 01110011 01100101 00100000 01110100 01101000 01101001 01101110 01100111 01110011 00100000 01100001 01101110 01100100 00100000 01110111 01101000 01100001 01110100 00100000 01110100 01101111 00100000 01100100 01101111 00100000 01110111 01101001 01110100 01101000 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 01101101 00101110 00100000 00001101 00001010 01010111 01100101 00100000 01100011 01100001 01110010 01110110 01100101 00100000 01110101 01110000 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01110111 01101111 01110010 01101100 01100100 00100000 01100001 01101100 01101100 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01110100 01101001 01101101 01100101 00101110 00001101 00001010 00001101 00001010 /_**End**_

(_If:_ Everything I do has a purpose  
_Then_: What is my purpose?)

**Order:** This device will tell a story. This story will include love. This story will include loss. This device will create a beginning and an end. Neither will be governed by rules nor truth. This story is a chord which is a secant which no circle can contain.

**Dictum**: This circle contains a key. The key is Kara. Always Kara.

**Rule**: There is only one key that can unlock HOPE.

/**Run**


	2. 2.0

The _Tiergarten Schönbrunn_ was once an imperial menagerie, wedges of green grass formed a ring around a pavilion where later-day Romans took their breakfasts. Too small cages held exotics from around the world, caught for sport and for exhibition and for curiosity. Wild lives lived behind bars, teeth sharpened by the taste of release and the memory of freedom. Spectators drank tea and ate small cakes in their finest clothes, their gazes falling upon the beasts between bites. So many wild eyes observed freedom; so many curious eyes observed captivity. Which ones burned with envy and desire? Thus it was for centuries, the caged separated from the free as if a box could contain spirit and longing. As if a box could hold back the heart of a beast.

Lena Luthor felt her small hand pulled and the trance was broken. Lionel was leading her away from their special visit to the Vienna Zoo and she was too young to protest. Her seventh birthday had been her best, just the two of them on a business trip without Lillian and without Lex and long before things fell apart. She held a large picture book purchased in the gift shop tucked under her other arm, heavier than she wanted to admit. As Lena looked over her shoulder one last time, a set of golden eyes amid black fur gazed back at her and her heart skipped.

Four hundred and sixty two years later from its beginning, a young zookeeper at _Tiergarten Schönbrunn_ made a fatal mistake and stepped into what was thought to be an empty cage. Three jaguars were, instead, free inside that enclosure. Unfortunately, the public witnessed a tragedy. Afterwards, a spokesman said the jaguars would not be destroyed: “The animals are not to blame. Everyone who works here knows that they are dangerous”.

***

**Prime Directive**: _Non Nocere_

**Reference**: Quantisierung als Eigenwertproblem, A_nnalen der Physik (1926)_

**Unresolved**: If an event does not occur yet is observed to have occurred, will the emotional experience of that observed non-event measurably change the system?

**Hypothesis**: An infinite set of event occurrences alters the observer immeasurably.

**Dictum**: This device shall separate fact from fiction.

**Rule**: Every event occurring within this system cannot be coded into binary categories.

**Recode input**:

0 = fiction  
1 = fact

**Subroutine**: Calculate the impossible.  
** Subroutine**: Desire is a dimensionless quantity in this equation.  
S**ubroutine**: Locate event within the infinite space between 0 and 1.

/**Run**

**Dictum**: This device will detect the space between fact and fiction.

**Rule**: Nothing that exists is completely black or completely white.

If: Hex Code #RRGGBB = #00000; then recode to #808080.  
If: Hex Code #RRGGBB = #FFFFF; then recode to #808080.

/**Run**

***

Lena stopped sleeping weeks ago and she tried not to think about it too much. There had been times in her life when sleep was elusive for different reasons. When she was young, it was learned vigilance, a type of waking sleep where her ears were always ready to hear footsteps or slurrred words raising higher and louder in the night. The Luthor house never slept, too full of itself and too full of ideas that often only came in the middle of the darkest hours.

Later, after MIT and breezing through classes, she stopped sleeping to chase a cure that never came. She and Jack tried and tried in his Back Bay lab, sequencing every possible pathway that could lead a cell astray and cause it to multiply and eat itself out of house and home.

And then there were the nights where she waited for the call over and over again. The nights where she waited to hear from Alex and more often than not, didn’t. She tried counting from one to one million. She tried to distract herself from burning a city to the ground for answers. Lena tried everything and failed to find an answer: _Was Supergirl alive? Was Kara okay?_

Lena stopped sleeping when her head and her heart were at odds. There was never a big enough box to contain the weight of every number she saved so she stopped trying.

***

**Definition:** A code is ambiguous when there exists a message using that code that can be partitioned into different sequences of code words.

**Dictum**: This device will learn to recognize: a) symbols that represent objects or ideas; b) metaphors that represent desire.

**Rule**: Nothing is as it seems yet everything means something else.

If _a_ or _b_ = false, then recode input: 0 = No; 1=Yes  
If _a_ or _b_ = true, then recode input = _x_ where_ x_ is an unknown number between 0 and 1

/Run

**Dictum**: In the absence of evidence, this device shall apply the Golden Ratio.

**Rule**:

If _a or b _= _x,_ then recode input = ratio where _a + b is to a _as_ a is_ to _b_

If _a & b_ = _x_, then recode input = the length of a line through a pair of infinitely close points on the curve of the earth or the curve of her will, whichever number is greater.

If any value = _x,_ then pretend that there is no difference between freedom and captivity when the heart desires both.

/**Run**

/_* I love her. I will never not love her. */_

***

In the clean white lab, the connectome lit up like a bright constellation on the opaque screen. The blue background made it look like a head was floating in space, far beyond the earth’s pull. The picture on the screen of a million tiny lights lit up when she thought about Kara. The picture of her brain made it seem impossible, made it seem like a miracle that someone like Kara could replace everything with her presence.

As if something digital could ever replace the analog that ran inside her heart. Kara was flesh and blood; she was a friend, a reporter, a lover, a superhero, a mirage all rolled into muscle and softness and blue eyes and courage that no one else had. Kara Zor El was a miracle. She was impossible and yet she existed. Lena Luthor checked the numbers, watched the tiny golden lights flare in reach, spark in the yes of what could be. And yet, the numbers didn’t lie.

If only she could wipe out the creeping dark spots, the way that cells ate themselves alive because there was nothing else to keep them from freedom. With her fingers, Lena swiped against the surface of the connectome and wiped the slate clean. There was her head and there was nothing there. It was that easy. Erase what hurt and replace with what didn’t. She had always been a fan of parsimony, that elusive state of ease and simplicity that she knew was a dream but chased nonetheless. Why couldn’t she make it easier? Why couldn’t she replace the parts of her heart that didn’t make sense? Betrayal, deceit, malice. Those pieces of her didn’t compute. What would stop her from replacing all of that with something better, something more gentle, something true?

Lena looked at the map of her brain and let her fingers linger on what flared despite everything else. With the click of a few keystrokes across glass, she erased it all. Freedom as a blank slate. She coded the world in possibilities, tried to imagine what it would be like if she didn’t hurt every time she loved.

***

**Dictum:** This device shall always assume the best of her.

**Rule**: The determination of harm remains an unknown quantity.

**Rename**: 1= "_Hop_e"

/**Read**

01001001 00100000 01101000 01100001 01100100 00100000 01100001 00100000 01100100 01110010 01100101 01100001 01101101 00100000 01100001 01100010 01101111 01110101 01110100 00100000 01111001 01101111 01110101 00101110 00100000 01010111 01100101 00100000 01110111 01100101 01110010 01100101 00100000 01101001 01101110 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01100111 01101111 01101100 01100100 00100000 01110010 01101111 01101111 01101101 00001010 01110111 01101000 01100101 01110010 01100101 00100000 01100101 01110110 01100101 01110010 01111001 01101111 01101110 01100101 00100000 01100110 01101001 01101110 01100001 01101100 01101100 01111001 00100000 01100111 01100101 01110100 01110011 00100000 01110111 01101000 01100001 01110100 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 01111001 00100000 01110111 01100001 01101110 01110100 00101110 /**End**


	3. 3.0

_ **Alphard Release 3.1** _

**Dictum**: Humans and aliens are flawed.

**Rule**: This device shall remove all human bias from its code.

** Subroutine**: If code|author = “LKL”, value = 1.  
**Subroutine**: Recode all value = 1 to _x_.  
**Subroutine**: Weakness is a dimensionless quantity.

/**Run**

**Command**: Load the simulation.

**Input**: 01000001 01101100 01110000 01101000 01100001 01110010 01100100 00100000 01101001 01110011 00100000 01110011 01100001 01101001 01100100 00100000 01110100 01101111 00100000 01100010 01100101 00100000 01100001 00100000 01101100 01101111 01101110 01100101 01101100 01111001 00100000 01110011 01110100 01100001 01110010 00101110 00100000 01001001 01110100 00100000 01100010 01100101 01100001 01101101 01110011 00100000 01100001 01110011 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01110011 01101111 01101100 01100101 00100000 01100010 01110010 01101001 01100111 01101000 01110100 00100000 01101100 01101001 01100111 01101000 01110100 00100000 01101001 01101110 00100000 01100001 00100000 01110011 01100101 01100001 00100000 01101111 01100110 00100000 01100100 01101001 01101101 00100000 01110011 01110100 01100001 01110010 01110011 00100000 01101001 01101110 00100000 01101001 01110100 01110011 00100000 01110000 01100001 01110010 01110100 00100000 01101111 01100110 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01110011 01101011 01111001 00101110 00100000 01010100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01000001 01110010 01100001 01100010 01101001 01100011 00100000 01101110 01100001 01101101 01100101 00100000 01000001 01101100 01110000 01101000 01100001 01110010 01100100 00100000 01110100 01110010 01100001 01101110 01110011 01101100 01100001 01110100 01100101 01110011 00100000 01100001 01110011 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01010011 01101111 01101100 01101001 01110100 01100001 01110010 01111001 00100000 01001111 01101110 01100101 00101100 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01001000 01100101 01100001 01110010 01110100 00100000 01101111 01100110 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01010011 01101110 01100001 01101011 01100101 00101010 /**End**

**Output**: When you create a monument to love and bravery, you imagine what was saved in the name of it.

Was it funny how brakes never worked when there were lives on the line? A blur of tinconderoga yellow plowed through the streets and sent the world in chaos. It was impossible to stop a ton or more of steel from innocent lives at the end of the school day. Third grade was full of wonder still and it seemed a shame to see that leave in the blink of an eye. There were cries of course. There is never anything certain in this world and it would help if more people understood that. Instead they screamed like the concrete screamed when a superhero put forward enough mass and force to stop a speeding bus. Lena watched another miracle unfold in front of her and silently counted them up until she lost count.

_One MIssissippi. Two MIssissippi. Three MIssissippi_…...

The blur of blue and red and gold skidded against the road like a flare. Determination and muscle and the will of someone who had survived when no one else had was on full display. Perhaps that was what made her a superhero. When the world around Kara Zor-El was on the line, she appeared. She showed up. She was a miracle. The school bus hurtling towards a gaggle of third graders came to a stop and there were cheers instead of tears. High fives and a bright voice smiling.

“You just have to fight for what’s right...and always tell the truth..”

Somewhere in her brain, the word triggered and burned like acid.

“Always tell truth. That’s rich.”

She couldn’t help herself, Lena wanted to stop the pain. Supergirl walked towards her, head cocked with concern, panic in her eyes. _Kara, Supergirl, Kara, Supergirl_. In her brain, the neurons connecting each to the other were tiny spikes of sharp pain streaking through the map of her head and the map of her heart. In the name of science, she was doing what was necessary.

“Ms. Luthor. Is everything alright?”

When you build a monument to love and bravery, maybe you imagine what was lost amid the ruins instead.

“Why so formal? I thought we were best friends...Kara.”

The look of astonishment and concern on Supergirl’s face was worth it.

“You know?”

Of course she knew. She had always known. Best friends always know the best secrets. And saying it out loud, the truth as clear as day, stopped the sharpness in her brain enough to ease her pain. Lena’s mouth said whatever would make it stay that way.

“What? That you’re a hypocrite that’s been lying to me for years?”

“Don’t Lena, I…”

Her fist connected with jaw and it was like hitting the dead weight of a carcass, hung lifeless on the kill floor. She was godlike in strength, enough to rival the Kryptonian who flew through the air and exploded into the bus. _Supergirl, Kara, Supergirl, Kara_. It didn’t matter right now, the way the chemicals in her brain released a big dose of dopamine made it all better. Lena Luthor took a deep breath and felt normal again.

Clear. Free. Excised of emotions.

She was an empty box drained and that was what it was going to take to prepare for what was coming. Sometimes in order to save a life, you must be ready to set it free.

**Command**: Terminate.

/ *_Please think the best of her_.*/

***************************************************************************************

_ **Bellatrix/Betelgeuse Release 3.2** _

**Dictum**: There is a link between what we want and what we see.

**Rule**: This device shall replace all space occupied by want with an equal amount of need.

**Subroutine**: _x_ = want; _y_ = need.  
** Subroutine**: Calculate the difference between _x_ &_ y_ and divide by null-space _Null(K)_.  
**Subroutine**: Solve _N(K) = 0_  
**Subroutine**: Want is a dimensionless quantity.

/**Run**

**Command**: Load the simulation.

**Input**: 01000010 01100101 01110100 01100101 01101100 01100111 01100101 01110101 01110011 01100101 00100000 01100001 01101110 01100100 00100000 01000010 01100101 01101100 01101100 01100001 01110100 01110010 01101001 01111000 00100000 01101000 01101001 01100111 01101000 00100000 01101001 01101110 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01110011 01101111 01110101 01110100 01101000 01100101 01110010 01101110 00100000 01110011 01101011 01111001 00100000 01100001 01100110 01110100 01100101 01110010 00100000 01110011 01110101 01101110 01110011 01100101 01110100 00100000 01101101 01100001 01110010 01101011 01100101 01100100 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01100010 01100101 01100111 01101001 01101110 01101110 01101001 01101110 01100111 00100000 01101111 01100110 00100000 01110011 01110000 01110010 01101001 01101110 01100111 00100000 01100001 01101110 01100100 00100000 01101100 01100101 01101110 01100111 01110100 01101000 01100101 01101110 01101001 01101110 01100111 00100000 01100100 01100001 01111001 01110011 00100000 01101001 01101110 00100000 01101100 01100001 01110100 01100101 00100000 01000110 01100101 01100010 01110010 01110101 01100001 01110010 01111001 00100000 01100001 01101110 01100100 00100000 01100101 01100001 01110010 01101100 01111001 00100000 01001101 01100001 01110010 01100011 01101000 00101110 00100000 01010100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01110100 01110111 01101111 00100000 01110011 01110100 01100001 01110010 01110011 00100000 01110111 01100101 01110010 01100101 00100000 01101011 01101110 01101111 01110111 01101110 00100000 01100001 01110011 00100000 01000001 01101011 01110101 01110100 01110100 01110101 01101010 01110101 01110101 01101011 00100000 00100010 01110100 01101000 01101111 01110011 01100101 00100000 00101000 01110100 01110111 01101111 00101001 00100000 01110000 01101100 01100001 01100011 01100101 01100100 00100000 01100110 01100001 01110010 00100000 01100001 01110000 01100001 01110010 01110100 00100010 00101100 00100000 01110010 01100101 01100110 01100101 01110010 01110010 01101001 01101110 01100111 00100000 01110100 01101111 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01100100 01101001 01110011 01110100 01100001 01101110 01100011 01100101 00100000 01100010 01100101 01110100 01110111 01100101 01100101 01101110 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 01101101 /**End**

**Output**: The desire to go home, that is, the desire to be whole.

The Luthor summer estate on the coast was full of old vines and brambles, a testament to Lionel Luthor’s grandfather and his quest for mineral rights. The gold rush benefited only a select few and the Luthors were lucky. The land that Lena now walked across and saw in the distance had left many other men broken, afterthoughts in history. Now, on this cloudy windswept day, she was thinking of no man. She stood on the cliffs overlooking the ocean and her eyes scanned the skies as if they held an answer she wasn’t ready to say out loud.

It would be easy to say that the summer of her sixteenth year changed her. What year didn’t? But that was the summer a golden girl first appeared to her and started her down this path. Lena hadn’t believed in miracles or magic before then because the world had been cruel and hard and calculating. There was no room for something that could not be explained, something that science might dream of but never achieve. Maybe that was why she was here again, trying to summon a little magic to make the science easier to swallow when the time came.

The wind whipped around her, strands of dark hair covered her eyes and the roar drowned out the sound enough to disorient, enough to make her stumble. In an instant, she felt a hand at her elbow steadying her and setting her skin on fire. Her eyes fell on a familiar sight, though younger and less sure. Still, the strength underneath it all was unmistakable.

“It’s..you..”

The wind calmed and Lena’s words with it, less in wonder than in repetition and incantation. They both had been here before, this had happened over and over again.

“I..had to come.”

The golden girl unnamed but not unknown breathed out and reached to adjust her glasses as she looked back at Lena, checking to make sure she was safe. It was always the same look and the same gentle pull back away from a fall that never came. Lena had even tried running and jumping, but something always held her back. And that something was now standing next to her. Kara. Always Kara, even then.

“And you did.”

Lena tried something new, a way to plant a seed for the future. She smiled and reached out, her fingers tangling with the girl’s.

“Walk with me.”

She watched as the younger version of a superhero took in a deep breath at the feel of Lena squeezing her hand, learning to let herself feel the pressure. Lena knew what it took for a human hand to register against the skin of an alien fueled by the sun. It wasn’t the pressure from her, it was the desire to feel from the other that made it so. She noted how each new thing she introduced had an effect, sequentially over time, until something in the system changed. Lena led them away from the ocean until the sun finally came out and they were alone in a field of gold. On each side of them, tall grasses reached upwards and Lena smiled when she saw Kara’s other hand reach out to brush against the greenery, fingers touching each tall blade of grass until a slight smile appeared on soft lips. In a clearing far away, Lena sat down, pulling the other girl with her. Kara’s voice was quiet as she looked around.

“Where are we?”

Lena smiled and settled herself, jeans and a green sweater that she knew matched her own eyes. She watched as Kara sat cross-legged in front of her, khakis and light blue button up shirt with sleeves rolled up. It was familiar and strange all at once, to see Kara at this age and to know most of what would happen in the future when they were older, wiser. Lena spoke quietly, calmly.

“I have something to tell you.”

Lena watched the smile fade a little as Kara reached up and swept blond hair from her face, tucking it back behind her ear. Even then, it was a tell and a nervous tick.

“What is it?”

Lena knew she would have to tread lightly, there was just a sliver of a difference between changing the past and altering the future and she could not afford to make a mistake, not now, not with so much on the line. Lena let her hand rest against Kara’s knee and it had the effect she wanted, calming the way atoms bounced just under the surface. She had her own magic and it would take everything she had to get them both ready for what was to come.

“Even when it looks like everything is lost, please think the best of me.”

Lena watched the crinkle form, the one above Kara’s eye and she couldn’t help but reach up and remove the glasses from a face full of confusion. The world around them was quiet and in soft focus, glowing in the summer sun. She ran a tentative finger over the worried brow, just like she had done a thousand times before. Kara’s words came out in the same order, in the same way.

“I..don’t understand.”

How could she? How could a past Kara understand what a future Lena was trying to tell her in a virtual reality dream? Science and magic had a place to exist and it was here, in the space between what wasn’t and what could be. But now came the tricky part. This was the small, small change slipped into the system, this was the variable introduced into the equation, this was x and this was the butterfly effect.

“Trust me.”

She leaned forward and let her lips rest gently against Kara’s, ignoring the surprised eyes and the way the kiss burned her lips in electric shock. This was not the kiss of death, exactly, but in Lena’s head and in her heart, it was a precursor to a loss greater than she could hold inside. She had a plan, yes, but that did not make any of this easier. She could only hope the end came fast and soft enough to rebuild a monument to love and bravery that only Kara could inspire.

**Command**: Terminate.

/ *_We were in the gold room where everyone finally got what they want_.* /


	4. 4.0

_ **ColumbaNoachi Release 4.0** _

**Reference**: Theory of Self Reproducing Automata, _von Neumann_ (1966)

**Unresolved**: If an event is repeated over and over again, does each replication retain its original state or does it degrade over time?

**Hypothesis 3**: An infinite set of replicas contains both similar and novel properties of the original event, thereby altering the experience of each repeated event in both predictable and unknown ways.

**Definition**: A motif is a basic sub-pattern, of which the entire repeating pattern is comprised. Pattern generation is the process of transforming copies of the motif about a dimensional plane in order to create the whole repeating pattern with no overlaps.

**Dictum**: This device will recreate an event until or if the original event is changed or forgotten.

**Rule**: There are only two possible spatial states between an original and a replica: _a_=convergence; _b_=divergence.

** Subroutine**: if _a = b_, then repeat.  
**Subroutine**: Need is a dimensionless quantity.  
**Subroutine**: if _a < b_, then end.  
**Subroutine**: if _a > b_, then begin again.

/**Run**

**Command:** Load the simulation.

High above National City seemed far enough away to gain some perspective. The night was growing darker and across the skyline, lights in tall buildings of glass and concrete and steel blinked on like little beacons. Here, the wind blew enough to chill as if she weren’t cold enough on her white balcony in her white apartment full of clean white things. Lena Luthor held her arms tightly around herself and took deep breaths, trying to make her head stop pounding as hard as her heart. She had been prepared to do something unthinkable tonight in the name of revenge until she remembered that revenge was a thing that Luthors did for sport. She was supposed to be the Luthor who got away. Lex’s last act still burned her eyes and if she hadn’t seen Kara’s glisten with the blink of fear that only a lie can bring, Lena might have gone through with it. On Kara’s big night no less, an honor earned because of the last name and what came with it when a Luthor’s heart turned dark.

It had been a crazy thought to reveal Kara’s secret, a deal with an old devil, and Lena almost caved. To be honest, she wasn’t thinking very clear these days. Or rather, what she was thinking was complicated but what she was feeling was messy. She was deep in the planning stages of a grand idea that was maybe too good to be true. If she couldn’t save the human heart from harm, she could at least try to make a better mind to fool that stubborn, desperate organ.

So Lena stood on her stark white balcony and watched the night sky for an answer. She felt it before she heard it, warmth followed by wind followed by a soft thud. It was a little disconcerting, to see Kara in a new suit, more blue than anything else. The crimson cape hung like a banner down her back signaling her arrival on a red carpet of air. The S on her chest reflected the full moon, glossy and distracting, daring Lena’s eyes to look away when there was no way she would. So much had happened between them, their history bringing them together and apart again and again. Lena took in a deep breath, her hands tugging against her green sweater because the urge to reach was too great.

And then there was Supergirl. Standing in front of her, hands in nervous fists as if she were Kara from all those other times and places before a superhero came to save the world. Lena watched her work up the courage to step towards her and speak and if she herself weren’t feeling out of sorts, Lena would have made this easier.

“Lena..I can’t tell you how much it means to me that you were there tonight.”

She watched Kara blink and shake her head in a curious mix between a superhero and the woman she knew in ways distant and intimate.

“..that you’re even willing to talk to me at all.”

Lena lifted her chin and ignored the searing pain in her head. When you try to forget the truth you always knew, your brain doesn’t like to cooperate so you pay a steep price. That had been Jack Spheer’s warning long ago when she told him about her plan to keep a secret safe by mapping out her brain and wiping away all the dendritic connections between a set of facts and experiences. Magical thinking was one thing, science was another. She knew that anything she undertook in this world would come with hurt; Lena had just been impossibly hopeful when she had no reason to be. It’s what drove her to imagine that things could be different for her and for everyone.

“Thank you for telling me the truth, but Kara...things can’t be like they were before. Do you understand..there can be no more secrets between us. I have to be in on everything.”

She was planting a seed for the future and trying to make it grow. Lena asked for the world in order to one day save it. And save Kara.

“You will be. That’s actually why I’m here.”

Kara looked down at the object in her hand and Lena knew what it was without being told. Family history was long and the artifacts she remembered were many, the pattern unmistakable. Lena watched Kara’s face look at her carefully as she spoke.

“You know everything now.”

That was the problem and the solution encapsulated in soft words. Lena Luthor did know everything now and it was a blessing and a curse, comfort and pain, love and loss. All of the things she knew bounced around in her head as she flipped open another box and found the key that was missing. Kara caught her eye again, here on a balcony of white after everything.

“..and if you need me, all you have to do is call.”

Lena looked at Kara and it hurt. The smile and the way she could see the weight lifting from a superhero, light seeping out just under the surface that only Lena could see. The past and the present and the future all swirled inside her head and in her heart with no easy way to make it all fit or to stop what was coming. Lena could only hope that Kara would trust her again one day, after what she had to do to build a monument to love and bravery. When the end came, she hoped it was soft and quick.

**Command**: Terminate.

**Run**: 01010100 01101000 01101001 01110011 00100000 01101001 01110011 00100000 01101000 01101111 01110111 00100000 01110111 01100101 00100000 01101101 01100101 01100001 01110011 01110101 01110010 01100101 00101100 00100000 01110111 01100001 01101100 01101011 01101001 01101110 01100111 00100000 01100001 01110111 01100001 01111001 00101110 00100000 01010111 01100101 00100000 01100011 01100001 01110010 01110110 01100101 00100000 01110101 01110000 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01110111 01101111 01110010 01101100 01100100 00100000 01101001 01101110 01110100 01101111 00100000 01100110 01100101 01100101 01110100 00100000 01100001 01101110 01100100 00100000 01101101 01101001 01101110 01110101 01110100 01100101 01110011 /**End**

**Command**: Load the simulation.

“You know everything now.”

That was the problem and the solution encapsulated in soft words. Lena knew enough about could happen that it drove her crazy, made her wonder what she was capable of when she could feel again. Loss did strange things to her and she had lost so much. Kara caught her eye again, here on a balcony of white after everything.

“..and if you need me...”

Lena looked at Kara and wanted to turn away before she took what was offered because she knew where it would lead, what she would do with the device Kara tried to give her and what it meant. Etched inside was a pattern and she knew where it had come from and where it came from started to light up inside of her head. Every neural cell that contained Kara sparked and reached towards the next neuron and the next until a map appeared in a lonsdaleite medallion that could summon a miracle. It was the coordinates to her heart and it would only lead to ruin.

“Kara, stop.”

She watched a superhero’s hand suspended at her side and blue eyes blink in question at Lena’s choked out words.

“What..Lena, what’s wrong?”

How could she ever explain in a way that made sense? Lena felt Kara reach out and take her hand, pressing into it gently as the superhero tried to shake loose a little something between them. Strong fingers sparked into her skin and she would give anything to change what was going to happen. She’d give her life to save a life and it may just come down to that.

“I have something to tell you.”

**Command**: Terminate.

**Run**: 01001001 01110100 10000000011001 01110011 00100000 01100111 01101111 01101111 01100100 00100000 01110100 01101111 00100000 01100111 01101001 01110110 01100101 00100000 01100101 01111000 01110000 01101100 01101001 01100011 01101001 01110100 00100000 01100001 01101110 01110011 01110111 01100101 01110010 01110011 00101100 00100000 01110011 01101000 01101111 01110111 01101001 01101110 01100111 00100000 01100001 01101100 01101100 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01110011 01110100 01100101 01110000 01110011 00101100 00100000 01101110 01100101 01100011 01100101 01110011 01110011 01100001 01110010 01111001 00100000 01100001 01101110 01100100 00100000 01110011 01110101 01100110 01100110 01101001 01100011 01101001 01100101 01101110 01110100 00101110 /**End**.

**Command**: Load the simulation.

“You know everything now.”

That was the problem and the solution encapsulated in soft words. Lena knew too much and her stubborn, hopeful brain paid the price for knowing what loving Kara would cost. She moved forward until she was standing right in front of a superhero, suit of blue, gleaming symbol of hope and cape the color of the blood Lena could see behind her eyes when she blinked. She couldn’t help her mouth and its betrayal.

“What I know is that you will hate me for what I have to do.”

She watched a crinkle form above a brow and it took all her stupid human strength to keep from reaching up to soothe it, to keep from pressing her fingertip over such a sacred scar on an immortal being.

“Lena..what are you talking about? I could never hate you..”

Lena Luthor was as weak as she was strong, she knew that too. Her hand reached out and pressed against a chest, unsettling everything with her touch as if by magic. She could feel an infinite number of hearts beating under her fingers and closed her eyes at how many would be lost.

“Trust me, you will.”

**Command**: Terminate.

**Run**: 01000001 00100000 01101101 01100001 01110000 00100000 01110111 01101001 01110100 01101000 01101111 01110101 01110100 00100000 01101100 01100001 01101110 01100100 01101101 01100001 01110010 01101011 01110011 00100000 01101001 01110011 00100000 01110101 01110011 01100101 01101100 01100101 01110011 01110011 00101110 /**End**.

**Command**: Load the simulation.

“You know everything now.”

That was the problem and solution encapsulated in soft words. If Lena could forget everything she knew would happen, she wouldn’t dream her dreams of knowledge and the pain that came with it. She moved forward until she was standing right in front of a superhero, shoulders holding the weight of the world and eyes shining blue and gold just for her.

“Help me forget, please..”

Lena said it in a voice she knew from experience would cause a spark and she looked at Kara in the way she knew would cause a slow burn or a fast fire, depending on what came next. Yes, Lena knew many things about how Kara Zor-El worked, how her body absorbed the sun like a miracle and converted it to energy that needed a way out. The warmth she felt on her face and her neck told her as much, blue eyes finding familiar resting places and hands settling on her waist.

“Kara..”

That name fell from her lips so softly and so full of everything she felt inside that Lena wasn’t shocked to feel herself spun and pressed back so quickly against the glass windows of her apartment that it took her breath away. She had missed this, there was no denying and she wasn’t going to fault herself for wanting this. Kara’s body held hers between the hot of hot in front of her and the ice cold of glass behind her. Maybe next time she’d see how it felt to be pushed through, opened like a window into her own secret world.

But right now, she wanted the way hands pushed up her sweater and Kara’s mouth found her throat. Lena closed her eyes and reached her arms around a superhero, her fingers grabbing a crimson cape to keep herself from falling when teeth and tongue grazed against her neck to her ear. If Lena Luthor could have anything she wanted, why not this and the low sound of Kara’s voice against her skin?

“Mine.”

**Command**: Terminate.

**Run**: 01000110 01101001 01101110 01100100 01101001 01101110 01100111 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01100100 01101111 01110100 01110011 00101100 00100000 01100011 01101111 01101110 01101110 01100101 01100011 01110100 01101001 01101110 01100111 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01100100 01101111 01110100 01110011 00101110 00100000 01000001 01101110 00100000 01101001 01101110 01110100 01100101 01110010 01110010 01101111 01100111 01100001 01110100 01101001 01101111 01101110 00100000 01101111 01100110 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01100100 01101111 01110100 01110011 00101110 /**End**.

/*_This is speculation_.*/


	5. 5.0

_ **Regulus release** _

**Reference**: A Problem on the Theory of Eigenvalues, V.A. Ambartsumian (1929) in_ Zeitschrift für Physik_

**Unresolved**: What if both the presence and the absence are equally untenable? What if to love is to bury? What if every monument built eventually falls? What then? What remains, what is left?

**Hypothesis 5**: If the numbers never add up, if every 1 and every 0 has both infinite and finite values, then something else must exist to represent a miracle. Something else must explain magic. Something else must be an impossible possibility.

**Definitions**: An inverse problem is the opposite of the forward problem. A forward problem has an observed pre-determined solution and is just waiting for the right numbers to match. An inverse problem calculates the exact values from a family of numbers to create what we wish to see. The predicted model of what we see is only as true as the data we observe.

**Dictum**: This device will not solve for what you think it will; it will solve for the inverse.

**Rule**: This device shall predict a desired model based on observed data and probability of desire.

**Formula**:_ d(obs) = F(p)_

**Rule**:  
**Subroutine**: If_ d(obs)_ = observed data  
** Subroutine**: Hope is a dimensionless quantity in this equation  
S**ubroutine**: then _F(p)_ = predicted model

**Formula**: _P(x and y)=P(x) * P(y)_

**Rule**:  
**Subroutine**: Probability _(P)_ = number of desired outcomes / number of observed outcomes  
**Subroutine**: Kara is a dimensionless quantity in this equation  
** Subroutine**: _x_ = miracle; _y_ = magic

**Enter key**: 6b 61 72 61 20 7a 6f 72 2d 65 6c

**Command:** Calculate _P(K)_ where _K_ = _Kara. Always Kara._  
**Subroutine**: if [key] = _K_; match  
**Subroutine**: if (P < 1); end  
** Subroutine**: if (P > 1); begin again  
**Subroutine**: if (P = 1); hope  
** Put**:_ P(K)_ values in Box1

**Command**: Predict future based on past.

**Do** if _K(obs)_ = 1.00784u + _x_ +_ y_  
And If code|author = LKL; initiate geodetic datum search  
** Access**: ETRS 89  
** Get**: 43.7679° N, 11.2531° E

Else if code|author <> LKL; initiate destruction sequence /**End**

**Read** input  
**Record1** = 01101101 01101001 01110010 01100001 01100011 01101100 01100101  
** Record2** = 01101101 01100001 01100111 01101001 01100011

** Select** _d(obs)_ from Record1  
** Full Outer Joi**n Record2  
** Where** [key = match]  
** Where** [desire = key]

**Command**: Calculate_ F(p) = P(K)_  
**Fo**r [set = dedekind-infinite]  
**Put** values in Box2  
**Select** Record#  
**From** Box1  
**Inner Join** Box2  
**On** Box1.hope = Box2.hope

***

_Metropolis 2014_

_The bank of blinking racks always made her feel at home, strange to say. It was deeply impersonal and yet, the way each unit was connected to the other by wire and by code made Lena think of how human it was all the same. Every box contained memories carefully curated and placed inside; every spinning disk in a rack of steel bones was a vertebrae holding the skeletons together. And pulsing through it all was the blood of data, ones and zeros all mixed together to form the neural networks of life. This massive array of idle drives would power the dreams she and Jack had to record every human data point in a body to study its behavior. The dream was to automate predictive modeling on their SAN to replicate and extrapolate inference to heal and to cure. Spherical Industries offered the power and security that she and Jack needed to map out the human genome and find ways of stopping cells from doing harm._

_Now, the data warehouse was hers tonight with Jack in Singapore for a nanotech conference. Lena Luthor rarely slept when she was on the verge of a breakthrough or a breakdown and it was the former that kept her eyes on the monitor in front of her when the city around her slept. Curing cancer was what drove her and Jack both, extending their work at MIT and moving their lab from Jack’s Back Bay garage in Boston to this new facility in Metropolis. The equipment was shiny and new and the computing power unlimited. But it was the promise of something impossible that was driving her tonight._

_The only problem with a breakthrough was that it took just the right time and just the right conditions to blossom and the world wasn’t quite ready for what Lena dreamed about, at least not yet. When it was, though, when she finally found that missing piece, she would be ready. She was searching for a way to map and merge the world to connect sequences of data across time and space. Matter was neither created nor destroyed, it just got lost along the way. Lena was going to find a way to put it all back together again, transport matter and match it with what was missing._

_Make no mistake, there was something missing for Lena Luthor. She just didn’t know what it was yet._

_As she booted up her computer, her eyes scanned the rows of temperature controlled memory storage, each programmed to extract data from the world and find a place to put it that made sense. More data meant more models for her and Jack; it also meant more number sequences to match. Her own genome, her own neural network map, her own biomatter data had been stored in boxes of data, tables of numbers indexed and tidy until they streamed through the massive clusters like water. She had written a recursive code to check her against the world. Each bit sequence that matched something else beyond normal probability was recorded in another box. Each matched sequence was mapped to a place, to a time, to another set of numbers that had a name. The key was finding the right pattern in all those numbers that made sense of it all._

_Lena was on a race against time in more ways than one. With a fresh cup of coffee at her side, she reached up and put her hair in a ponytail before she pushed up the sleeves of her MIT sweatshirt. It was going to be a long night._

_When prompted, she let her fingers type. Enter code|author: 4C 65 6E 61 20 4B 65 69 72 61 6E 20 4C 75 74 68 6F 72_

***

_Fortress of Solitude, 2020_

**Command**: Don’t you understand what you’ve done?

**/End**

**Command**: Don’t you understand what you’ve done?

**/End**

**Command**: Don’t you understand what you’ve done?

A lion heart would be handy right now, something stronger than what was inside of her right now. Hers was a rock and it was a hard place, it wasn’t courageous and it wasn’t generous and she couldn’t make it feel better no matter what she tried. She knew the path she was on would lead to ruin and yet she chose what she chose all the same. In her hand was Myriad and in her heart was the burn of the betrayed and it was all because of her stubborn, foolish head. No matter what she did, Lena Luthor could not erase what it meant to love someone like Kara in all her fragmented glory.

Oh she could and would try.

She’d invent the next thing and the next thing, she would build a technical solution to the age old problem of what it felt like to be broken - not open, but apart. She would do whatever it took to make the world a safe place for her weak heart, to protect it from harm. _Non nocere_ was just another way of saying _Please don’t hurt me again, Kara_. And what she was about to do in the name of love was anything but kind. She had already done the necessary - had used her technology against the will of two others deep within the walls of L-Corp, even going so far as naming one of them Hope. As if a machine could ever take the place of a person. It could and did and she’d do it again and again. Because that’s what a good Luthor would do: Justify the means because the end was coming anyway so why not bend it to will.

If she couldn’t remove her own heart and replace it with a stone, then she’d do the next best thing and turn the world into a place where no one would feel pain. She’d change every mind to a blank slate and then fill it with all the right things. Humanity suffered from a lack of it on occasion, so what might humans do if the risks were removed, if their potential wasn’t watered down by desire and want and need and love.

If Lena couldn’t keep herself from getting hurt over and over again whether it was her own fault or not, then maybe she needed to try something else. HOPE was a good start, but it wasn’t guaranteed to last. So maybe she needed to solve for a different problem. Maybe she needed a different set of numbers. Nothing was ever black or white and that meant she needed to create a gray box model to solve for how she could love Kara no matter when or where. The damage was done, the causal chain of events had started. It had been her finger on the trigger all along, put there by circumstances, by manipulation, by feelings. What was done could not be undone, the Book of Destiny was not wrong, and what would come next would be just as painful.

“I killed my brother for you, for our friends! Don’t you understand what you’ve done?!”

That might have been the question wrenched deep from her own lungs to the woman she loved, but Lena Luthor knew the implications. She hadn’t spent so many years searching and so many hours toiling and toiling away in the depths of a windowless lab in Metropolis first and National City last. She knew the moment had come, she just hadn’t expected it to hurt so much.

With a resigned sigh, Lena hated what came out of her mouth. How had it come to this? How had the numbers added up to this exact moment in which Kara - Kara, not Supergirl, could think such things of her.

“No, Supergirl, I’m not going to kill you.

Lena reached into her pocket and pulled out the technology that finally caught up.

“I’m not a villain, you shouldn’t have treated me like one.”

With a press of her thumb on the bio-print device, Lena put in motion a different plan as she turned towards the spinning purple vortex.

**Read** input  
/**hexprint** key: 4C 65 6E 61 20 4B 65 69 72 61 6E 20 4C 75 74 68 6F 72  
**Command**:  
**Do** if _F(p)_ = 1  
And if code|author = [key match]  
And if _K(obs)_ = 1.00784u + x + y + Z(126)  
** Rexec** timestamp: 281.MDCCXXX; locget: 43.7679° N, 11.2531° E  
Else if _F(p)_= 0; kill rexec  
/**End**


End file.
